Monsters and Magic
by harryHEARTginny
Summary: Harry's fifth year is made a little more exciting when he meets a monster that is supposed to be a fictonal book character. Writen for a school project.


**Alright, so like I said in my summary I wrote this as a project for school. In English we had just finished reading Frankenstein and for a final project we got pick something from a list, I choose to write a story when a character from Frankenstein meets a character from another book I've read. I choose Harry Potter because I thought that it would be perfect and Frankenstein could fit right in relatively easily.**

It had been a long, hard day for Harry Potter. It seemed as though all of the professors had decided that the fifth years needed more homework in order to be ready for their OWL's at the same time and Snape had been especially tough on him during his Occlumency lessons. Harry had been debating on going to the Gryffindor common room once Snape had released him, but then decided that it would be too crowded and that he didn't really want to be around people at the moment.

So, taking out his Invisibility Cloak from his backpack, Harry covered himself so that he disappeared from view and headed for the Entrance Hall. Once outside of the castle Harry shivered as the cold February air surrounded him. It was dark out, the overcast sky blocking out the light of the moon. Harry ventured through the packed snow towards Hagrid's hut on the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. Harry hadn't seen Hagrid in a while and thought that he might go and pay him a visit, but just as he neared the hut, something caught his attention. Out of the corner of his eye Harry saw what looked like the large form of a man, only it was too tall to be any average man, but too short to be Hagrid. But when Harry turned around to get a better look the form disappeared, quickly Harry made sure that the Cloak covered all of him before heading off swiftly in the direction where the figure had been only a moment ago. In the snow at the edge of the forest were large footprints where the form had stood. Curious, Harry began to follow the tracks into the woods, unfortunately the deeper he proceeded into the woods the more the canopy of tree branched prevented snow to reach the ground and the tracks were eventually impossible to find. Harry stood still for a moment, wondering which way he should venture, when he caught sight of a flit of orange through the trees. Cautiously, Harry made his way towards the light. As he approached closer and the trees began to clear slightly, he saw that the light came from a fire built in the centre of a small clearing. Sitting on a large tree stump beside the fire was a beast so large and hideous; it took all of Harry's restraint not to gasp aloud. The monster was huge, standing at about 8 feet with gruesome yellow skin and long black hair. Without a second thought Harry turned away from the sight and made his way as quickly and silently out of the forest as possible.

_What was that thing?_ Harry wondered.

He thought that he had learned about most of the monsters and mystical creatures in the wizarding world, but he had never seen anything like _that_ before. When Harry finally reached the Entrance Hall he quickly opened and shut the great door, he didn't have the Marauders Map with him so he just hoped to Merlin that no one caught him out this late after curfew, especially with all of Umbridge's little spies wandering around.

It took nearly ten minutes of careful navigation and stealth before Harry reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, who happened to be sleeping when he arrived, and was not too happy when he had to wake her. He quickly gave her the password and scrambled through the hole that was revealed. The common room was mostly empty except for a few sixth years talking and doing homework in one corner and Ron and Hermione sitting on the couches by the fire. Hastily, Harry made his way towards them.

"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed. "Where have you been, we were beginning to worry!"

"You guys will not believe what I just saw in the forest," Harry started but was interrupted by Hermione.

"What were you doing in the Forest? Harry, it's dark out, it's not wise to go in there alone."

"Hermione, will you stop mothering him so that he can tell us what he saw." Ron intervened, causing Hermione to blush.

Taking that as his cue to continue Harry went on. "Anyways I was walking towards Hagrid's when I saw something just inside the forest, but when I turned to get a better look it had disappeared, so I followed its tracks through the woods until I found it in a little clearing." Harry shook his head. "I've never seen anything like it."

"What was it? What did it look like?" asked Ron impatiently.

Harry described to them every chilling detail he could remember of the monster. When he finished Ron look as baffled as he felt, but Hermione looked completely shocked, amazed, and sick at the same time.

"What is it Hermione?" Harry asked, eager to know if she knew what the creature was.

"I'll be right back," Hermione said before running up the stairs to the girl's dormitories still in a dazed-like state. Ron and Harry just looked at each other, both equally bewildered.

A couple minutes later Hermione came back down with a book in her hand. She returned to the fire and began to flip through the pages of the book, muttering, "I can't believe it, I simply cannot believe."

"What, Hermione," Harry pressed, beginning to get frustrated.

"This is a novel I read over the summer, a supposedly fictional novel. You probably have heard of it Harry," Hermione handed the book to him. Harry looked at the cover and was shocked by the title,_ Frankenstein._ Harry looked up at Hermione in shocked confusion.

Taking the book back from him, Hermione began to explain. "Frankenstein is a novel, which was written by a woman named Mary Shelley. It tells the story of a man named Victor Frankenstein who creates a living creature, who is viewed as a monster, but really just wants to fit in, but as the story progresses the creature becomes angry, violent and really does turn into a monster who is bent on getting revenge with his creator… But I am beginning to wonder whether this story is really fiction or not, look at the description Mary Shelly gives the monster on page 35."

Taking the book from Hermione, Harry opened it to the proper page and began to read, with Ron reading over his shoulder.

"Harry!" exclaimed Ron. "That sounds exactly like the monster you describe!"

Harry looked up at Hermione, "You think that what I saw in the forest was Frankenstein's monster? How could that be?"

"Well I don't know for sure, but the descriptions are very similar, and I've never heard of any other creature like that before. There is a small Muggle literature section in the library, maybe I will be able to find out something on how Mary Shelley knows about the monster in there. I'll check tomorrow."

The next day was Saturday so Harry and Ron ended up sleeping in as usual. When they did end up finally going down to the Great Hall for breakfast they saw Hermione was already sitting halfway down the Gryffindor table with her nose hidden behind a book. The two boys walked down to where she was seated and sat across from her. Hermione put down the book, but didn't close it when she noticed that they had finally joined her.

"I've been up since dawn," Hermione said. "I couldn't sleep, I simply had to find out more about Mary Shelley. So I went to the Muggle literature section in the library. There isn't much selection there, but I did manage to find this, a biography on Mary Shelley." She handed the book across the table to Harry and Ron, and they both began to flip through its pages. "I searched through the whole book and managed to find something which I think might tell us why Mary Shelley would know about Frankenstein and his monster." Hermione took the book back from them and opened it up to a page near the middle. "There is a section in here which explains a bit about Mary Shelley's education, it says that she was mostly tutored at home, but it also says that she spent six months at a boarding school in Ramsgate. There isn't much about her time at the school, but it is briefly mentioned that she was not very popular and had but one countable friend by the name of Margret Walton."

"Alright," said Harry, after finishing reading over the section Hermione indicated to them. "But how does this help us find out why Marry Shelley knew about Frankenstein's monster?"

"At the beginning and ending of the book there are a series of letters which a man named Mr. Robert Walton, the captain of a ship travelling to the Antarctic is writing to his sister, Mrs. Margret Saville, in London. I think that the Margret to whom these letters are written to, is the same Margret who was friends with Mary back in Ramsgate. She must have shown Mary the letters and that she had been inspired by them and turned them into a story. Now, there is also this story that Mary Shelley came up with this tale originally as a scary story to tell for a competition while she was staying in a cabin with Percy Shelley and Lord Byron, and then later turned it into a book after some encouragement from Percy Shelley. What I think is that Mary knew about the story of Frankenstein before the contest in the cabin and decided that it would make a good scary story, then ended up writing it because Percy pushed her to."

Ron and Harry both thought it over for a moment and both agreed that this theory was very plausible, and seemed like the only reasonable explanation for why a supposed fictional creature is actually walking around in the forest surrounding their school.

"Alright so now we know how a fictional book character is actually well… nonfictional," said Ron. "But that still doesn't explain what he is doing at Hogwarts. I mean, why is he even here? There must be a reason."

"That's what I would like to know," said Harry. "Whatever his reason though, I don't think we'll like it. I have a really bad feeling about all of this."

The week went by and the trio got nowhere in the newly born mystery of Frankenstein's monster and his sudden appearance at their school. Really, they were too busy to put much thought into it, between the heavy school workload, dealing with Umbridge, and the secret DA meetings, they didn't have much time for anything else. Although Harry did manage to find time to read Hermione's copy of _Frankenstein. _If this monster was going to become more of an issue, he wanted to know what he was dealing with.

By the time he finished the book Harry did not know what to think of the creature. In a way he pitied it, being left alone to figure out the ways of the world on his own. Harry felt like he could relate in the sense that his parents were dead and not knowing for eleven years that he had been a wizard. Lately he also found that he is able to relate to the feeling of frustration and disappointment as the _Daily Prophet_ continued to ridicule him, making most of the wizarding world to believe him to be a psychotic, attention seeking, liar. But at the same time he felt indifferent to the monsters pain, only because of how he reacted to it; killing people who had done nothing to him, in order to get revenge on his creator. In truth the story worried him and brought up more questions as to _why_ it was at Hogwarts.

Harry found himself consumed in these thoughts one night as he sat staring out one of the Gryffindor Tower windows onto the Hogwarts grounds below. Ron and Hermione had already gone up to their dormitories, but Harry wasn't tired. As he stared out the window he noticed something running out of the woods. The figure was tall and Harry knew immediately that it was the monster. He watched as the creature ran towards the Whomping Willow, somehow managing to dodge its sweeping branches and diving agilely into the hidden tunnel which he knew leads to the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmead.

_What is he doing?_ Harry wondered. _Why would the monster want to go to the Shrieking Shack?_

Without a thought to what he was doing, Harry ran upstairs to quickly grab his Invisibility Cloak, careful not to wake anyone in the dorm, even Ron. It would have been too risky to try and sneak through the small tunnel with two people under the Cloak. Harry also made sure to remember the Marauders Map.

Made invisible by the magic of the Cloak and with the Map in hand Harry snuck out of the castle with relative ease. Once he reached the Whomping Willow Harry used his wand to levitate a nearby rock so that it pressed the knot on the violent tree's trunk, effectively putting a stop to the trees flailing branches, giving him enough to get into the tunnel. The walk down the secret passage was long and dark, and the low ceiling forced Harry to crawl on his hands and knees at times.

Finally, after what felt like hours he could hear voices coming from the end of the passage. Slowing his pace Harry made absolutely sure that he made no noise to alert anyone to his presence. As he approached the end of the tunnel he stopped and looked carefully into the room where the voices were coming from. He froze; there was Frankenstein's monster standing in the middle of a room that looked like it used to be a sitting room, talking with Voldemort.

The room was dark; the monster was standing with his back to Harry and Voldemort sat in a large chair with the stuffing pouring out the seams and jagged tears.

"He is hardly ever alone, the red head and the bushy haired female are always with him." The monsters voice was rough and deep.

Voldemort's face was calm, but his eyes were cold. "Then you will have to find a way to get him on his own. It is not a hard task, he is just a boy, and you- _you_ are a two hundred year old creature with great knowledge and strength."

The monster grunted.

A gleam of anger passed over Voldemort's eyes and his wand twitched in his hand. "You are fortunate that you have been a great use to me, otherwise you would be dead by now. Just do as I say and I will give you what you want."

"I will get the boy and bring him to you."

Harry had heard all he needed to. Quickly he turned and made his way back down the tunnel as silently as possible, before the monster returned down the passage as well.

The next morning, Harry told Ron and Hermione about what he had heard.

"Why would you go and do something like that alone, Harry? They could have caught you!" Typical Hermione, out of everything Harry had just finished telling her_ that_ was the only thing she took away from it.

"Hermione, did you not hear what Harry just said?" Ron sounded exasperated. "Voldemort is using Frankenstein's monster to get him."

"Alright, fine!" Hermione gave in, but she still didn't look like she was ready to drop the subject. "So, what are we going to do about this? Voldemort's promised to give the monster the partner Frankenstein denied him so that he will co-operate and-"

"Wait! How do you know that it is a partner that Voldemort promised the monster?" Ron blurted out.

"Well isn't it obvious?" Hermione asked in her usual know-it-all tone. "Voldemort promised to give the monster what he wanted. As far as I can tell there is only one thing that it has ever wanted, and that was a partner, so that it wouldn't be alone."

"But that was two hundred years ago," Harry pointed out. "There might be something else he desires to have."

Hermione shook her head. "I doubt it. Think for second, if you were the only one of your kind, and the rest of the world was scared of you, what would you want more than anything else?"

Harry and Ron were both silent, they knew Hermione was right, she always was.

"Alright, so what are we going to do about this? The monster has orders from Voldemort to capture Harry and take him to him." Ron asked, looking first from Hermione then to Harry.

Hermione was the first one to speak up. "I think we ought to tell Dumbledore. This is something he should know about."

"I don't think we should tell Dumbledore," Harry blurted out. He didn't want to tell Dumbledore anything. If he was going to keep secrets from him about Voldemort, than so was he. "I think that this is something we should just keep between us."

"But Harry-" stammered Ron. "What are we going to do about it?"

"I don't know, but I'll think of something. I just don't think that it's a good idea to tell anyone else about this."

Ron and Hermione both looked like they didn't agree, but they didn't argue further.

Over the next few days it appeared to Harry that Ron and Hermione had decided on their own that the best thing for them to do until they came up with a plan was to _never_ leave Harry alone, not even for the shortest of moments. Harry knew that he should be touched by their concern, but he actually found it really irritating, he didn't like being smothered. So far they had not seen the monster, not that it really meant much. Harry hadn't seen the monster at all in the time between seeing him in the forest and then in the Shrieking Shack, but somehow the monster had seen him enough to know that he spent most of his time with Ron and Hermione. That is what unnerved him. _How could a monster so big get into the castle unnoticed?_

Of course he had managed to live in obscurity for nearly two hundred years, which must have something to do with his uncanny stealth abilities.

It was Friday and Harry currently sat beside Ron in Transfiguration. Professor McGonagall had the whole class trying to turn a mouse into a tea cup. So far Hermione had been the only one to succeed, of course. The rest of the class continued to struggle. The only thing Harry had managed was; making his mouse into a bowl shape, but other than that nothing changed; it still had a fur covered body with feet, a tail, and a head with whiskers.

The whole class had been relieved when final bell rang and they were released for dinner. Harry and Ron gathered up their things and headed straight for the Great Hall, Hermione was going to catch up with them in a bit, she just wanted to get a book from the library that she needed for Ancient Ruins.

Dinner was an uneventful affair, Harry and Ron sat by Seamus and Dean and talked about Quidditch and Dumbledore's Army. Harry wanted some more ideas on what he should teach at the next couple of meetings, the whole group was progressing very well and he was starting to run out of ideas.

They were in the middle of a discussion on whether or not they should do a review on the Patronus Charm when Ron all of the sudden interrupted. "Harry, where's Hermione? She was supposed to meet us here, dinners almost over."

Harry looked around, Ron was right, Hermione hadn't shown up yet. "Hmm... I wonder what she is doing?"

"I bet she got distracted by some book and is sitting up in the library reading," said Ron.

"Yeah…" Harry agreed, but he wasn't so sure, something was giving him a bad feeling.

After they finished their discussion with Seamus and Dean, Harry and Ron went to the library to see if Hermione was still there, but she was nowhere to be found. They decided that they would go to the common room to see if she was there.

But she was nowhere to be found, they asked some of the other students in the common room if they had seen her, no one had. Harry was beginning to worry and he could tell that Ron was too.

"Why don't we go and check the Marauders Map?" Harry suggest, if she was on school grounds the Map would let them know where.

Ron agreed, "Good idea, mate."

Quickly the two ran up to their dorm, Harry went to the side table beside his bed to look for the Map, when a white piece of parchment resting on top of the table caught his attention. Picking up and unfolding the parchment Harry read its contents:

_ I know you know about me and about what I am here to do. I knew that I wouldn't be able to get you on your own, so I decided that you needed a bit of persuasion. You know where to find me. _

Harry froze; he was completely incapable of speech. He just stared at the note, horrified.

"What's it say, mate?" Ron sounded worried, slightly hysteric even.

Thrusting the note into Ron's hand Harry began to rummage through his trunk for his Invisibility Cloak. "The monster's got Hermione in the Forest, I have to go and get her."

Ron, who had been reading the note pale faced and shocked, looked up at Harry with an angry frustrated expression. "Don't you dare think for a minute that I'm not coming with you."

"Ron-" Harry started, but Ron quickly interrupted him.

"I'm coming with you, Harry."

Harry thought of arguing some more, but decided it would be pointless.

The night was cold and dark, Harry and Ron shivered under the Cloak as they walk towards the Forest. Harry remembered the first night he had seen the monster clearly, and knew exactly where he was going. The walk through the forest seemed longer this time, but finally he saw the same orange glow through the trees as he had last time. They finally reached the edge of the small clearing where Hermione could be seen sitting by the fire beside the monster. She seemed to be unharmed, besides having her hands and feet tied. By the looks of it she was talking to the monster, but they were too far away to hear what she was saying.

Under the Cloak Harry signaled to Ron to stay there, and then he stepped out from underneath its protection and out in to the open, walking briskly into the clearing Harry said, "Alright I'm here, now let her go."

The monster turned to Harry, not looking all that shocked at his presence. "Harry Potter, I've heard a lot about you." With speed completely inhuman the beast was beside Harry, and in one fluid motion had him pinned against a tree and his wand ripped from his hand. Harry struggled as the monster threw his wand among a pile of stacked fire wood. "I have orders to take you to the Dark Lord, and its best not keep him waiting, but before we go I think you'd better tell your ginger friend to come out before I'm forced to hurt your pretty little friend over there.

Immediately Ron stepped out from underneath the Cloak, his wand raised at the monster.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said the monster, pulling Harry in front of him like a shield. "Unless you are sure you won't miss."

Harry struggled against his captor, but it was useless, he was too strong. The determination that had been in Ron's eyes only moments ago when he first turned his wand on the monster disappeared. Slowly he resigned, lowering his wand before letting it drop to the ground.

Suddenly there was a flash of red light and the grip the monster had had on Harry loosened and he broke free. When he turned around he saw that Hermione sat on the ground with her wand between her tied hands. Harry and Ron ran to her quickly and began to untie the ropes that bound her.

"Hurry," Hermione urged, handing Harry his wand. "He won't be out for long."

Once Hermione was untied, the trio ran from the clearing as fast as they could. They were nearly out of the forest when Harry felt a great force hit the back of his head; he lost consciousness as he fell.

Harry's head hurt, and he groaned as he opened his eyes. _Where was he?_

His vision was slightly hazy, but as it slowly cleared he began to recognize the dusty disarray of the Shrieking Shack. Hearing a light moan beside him Harry turned to see both Ron and Hermione looking around, rubbing their heads.

"Glad to see that you are all waking up," Harry scowled when he heard the deep voice of the monster behind him. "You've been keeping our guest waiting."

Harry froze, then slowly turned to the back of the room. There, standing beside the great form of the beast was Voldemort, smiling a snake like smile.

"Harry Potter," hissed Voldemort, using his wand to levitate Harry to his feet. "We meet again."

Harry fought to keep his knee from buckling. "It's not by choice, trust me."

"You know why you're here, don't you?" Voldemort asked, getting so close that Harry could smell his vile breath, and had to fight the urge to gag.

"You want to kill me." said Harry, looking Voldemort in the eyes.

An evil smile crossed over Voldemort's thin lips. "Yes, Potter, you have been brought hear so that I can kill you, and I see no point in delaying it any further."

With those words Voldemort raised his wand and got ready to cast the spell that would ultimately end Harry's existence, when suddenly there was a loud cry.

"NO! STOP!"

Surprisingly he did, Voldemort lowered his wand and looked curiously over Harry's shoulder. Harry risked a look back and saw that Hermione, along with Ron, was struggling to get to her feet. "Please… don't…"

Harry wondered what Hermione was doing, she must have know that Voldemort wouldn't listen to her. Compassion was a lost concept on Voldemort.

"What girl?" Voldemort sneered. "You don't want me to kill your friend?"

Hermione shook her head, tears in her eyes.

"Well then, why don't I kill you first?"

Hermione looked terrified as Voldemort began to raise his wand towards her. With desperation in her eyes she turned towards the monster who had been standing in the corner watching everything that was happening. "Please," she begged. "Please help us!"

Confusion passed across the creatures ghastly features. Then, just as Voldemort cast the Killing Curse, he threw himself in front of Hermione, letting the jet of green light hit him square in the chest, and he fell to the floor, dead. There was a moment of confusion and Harry managed to pull Ron and Hermione with him behind a large sofa. Reaching into his robes, he was shocked to see that his wand was still there, and that the monster hadn't taken it when he'd captured them. Beside him both Ron and Hermione had pulled out their wands as well.

Voldemort's light footsteps could be heard approaching their hiding place, and Harry prepared himself to fight. But just as he was getting ready to jump out from behind the sofa they heard a loud pop and there was suddenly a series of colourful lights being reflected on to the wall in front of them. Beside him Hermione and Ron looked just as confused as he was and the three of them turned around to see Dumbledore dueling fiercely with Voldemort. Dumbledore was beginning to get the upper hand when Voldemort suddenly disappeared.

Dumbledore, seeing the three students behind the couch waved for them to come out and simply said. "I think we had better get you three checked out by Madame Pomfrey."

In the hospital wing Harry, Ron, and Hermione had all been given something to help ease their headaches. Hermione had additionally been given some Pepper-Up Potion to help with her quickly developing cold after being out in the snow for over an hour with only her school robes.

They all sat around Hermione's bed, Madame Pomfrey had insisted that she stayed in the hospital wing for the night. It had already been revealed that Hermione had gone behind Harry's back and told Dumbledore about Frankenstein's monster, and that when Harry didn't show up for his Occlumency lesson, Dumbledore figured something had happened and went looking for them. At first Harry had been angry with Hermione for her small betrayal, but then he realized that it probably saved their lives, and decided to let it go.

"Why'd he do it? Why did the monster jump in front of the killing curse heading for you, Hermione?" asked Ron.

Hermione sighed. "When we were in the forest I talked to the monster, I talked to him as though he was any normal human being. I think that's why he did it. I treated him as though he was human. That's all he ever wanted after all."

"Miss Grangers right," said Dumbledore. "Frankenstein's monster was made with a human heart and a human mind, but it was his physical appearance that set him apart from the rest of humanity. This left him lonely in this big, cruel world of ours, and as a penalty for human judgment he became a hateful being, bent on revenge against humanity. It was during the moments of kindness shown to him by Miss Granger that made him realize that not every human is worthy of death, but rather worthy of giving your life for."

They continued to talk for a while before Madame Pomfrey came out of her office to chase them out, stating that Hermione needed her rest. Not that Harry really minded, it had been a long night and he couldn't wait for warmth of his bed, and the peace that came with deep sleep.

**Not my usual type of story but I hoped you all liked it. Please review!**


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